Comments, are they important?

As bloggers we all want people to comment on our posts, to let us know they like our content, that we are doing a good job, etc...

Courtesy of Google images

But, do comments really help? If someone visits our blog, reads and writes and comment it ends there.
But, if someone goes to your blog, reads and shares the link to the post with their followers or social circles your post goes a lot further then with just a comment.

This is why I like share buttons on my blogs. Asking for a like or a share is easier then to ask for a comment.

With a comment they have to type what they mean to say and from a phone, which is what most people are using these days. The captcha box is pure evil on any smart device.

So pushing a like or share button is a whole lot easier and gets your blog more noticed rather then a comment.

Comments are more for you then the general public, they help keep the conversation of the post going and it shoes the reader your listening to what they have to say.

Asking for likes or shares is a lot easier to ask for from you reader.

there are many add-ons for blogs out there on the interwebs I will list a few of my favs below :)

www.sharethis.com has sharing widget that goes right above your comment section after every post. It offers all the latest social media devices.

www.addthis.com offers a share button widget but you are not able to customize it to your liking.

share.cunjo.com is the least favorite here hard to configure and doesn't give much room to grow.

Sharethis.com is the winner of the sharing widgets in my book and after you customize it, it will install itself for you! Cannot beat the ease of access and use you this sweet widget.

I have it listed installed below so you can get a peek of what it looks like.

Hope this helps, Please don't forget to like and share this post :)

Laurie M.

On a personal note

There is something I want to share with you all, something personal, something special to me.
And that is the other side of blogging, the ins and outs the ups and downs.

And I feel that I cannot do that here since this is a beauty blog, I feel it wont be right to combine the two, it may get confusing to the readers and they may not want to know about my personal journey as a beauty blogger.

So I created a personal blog to share my journey as a beauty blogger, wife, mom woman with you all.

This blog will help other bloggers with tips and advice on creating and setting up their blogs and well as all the things I go through to keep themakeupsquid.com going.

Makeupbeautyandme.blogspot.com

I would love for you to check it out and share your insight with me and also I will be able to answer any blogging questions you may have. Hope to see you there.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Hiding from the Little Diva.

Siousxie Blue J.

This is Siousxie, She is my niece by marriage. She is 5 years old going on 16.

Siousxie loves makeup and beauty just as much as I do, so much that I have to hide all my makeup and beauty products from her.

Siousxie applies eyeshadow and lipskip, Thats right Lipskip everyday.

Shes dresses herself in the latest fashion.

Her hair is past her bum and always open except at bed time that's when its in braids.

When visiting our family, we usually have to hide all chap-stick, moisturizer and other products from her.

Shes like a midget ninja and you wont know when she strikes!!

The best is when she plants herself in front a mirror and gives a full tutorial, as if she is talking to all her YouTube fans. And my personal favorite the makeup collection.

I plan on doing a video with Siousxie for my channel while I am here, but until then I wont be applying any makeup in fear of the little diva.

Siousxies MOTD

Siouxsie gets all my hand me down products that I just don't care for anymore.

Do you have a little Diva in your life?

How to add your personal domain name to blogger

 Here are step by step instructions for changing to a personal domain name with blogger.
It took me a couple of tries to get it right, but if you take it slow one step at a time it will work.

Now #8 is very important because not every one types in www. before a domain name so be sure enter your A-records. You will have to repeat step 9 four times.

This part is specific to go daddy as it the service I am familiar with.

I hope this helped, if not I am truly sorry. When I get stumped I always call godaddy and they always walk me through it step by step and if you get a really nice person they might even do it for you :)

Good Luck!
Laurie M.

A blog is born

I started my beauty blog www.themakeupsquid.com in august of 2013.

I did not know what I was doing, I did not know where to begin, so I did what I always do.

I jumped right in and went for it.

I chose a name the makeup squid. How did I pick that name?

I went to a site that helps you pick screen names, I found it through Google.

I typed in my key word Makeup, then a few interests and then nothing, for hours.

I asked people to describe me in one word and all I got back was, straightforward, bitchy and real.

Nothing clicked. So I just started searching Google and while browsing I saw the site Squidoo.com and it happened, I asked my daughter what do you think about themakeupsquid? 

She immediately said yes and I liked it too.

I knew it was different and no one in the world had a name like that for anything beauty related, so I signed up with blogger, twitter, Facebook, instagram, pintrest and tumblr. I know that's a lot of social networks but I wanted to tie up the name.

I got all that down, now I needed a look. My beauty blog has the same layout as this blog.

I like the clean layout, even though my other blog can get pretty cluttered in the side bars, I go in there every so often and clean it up.

I joined bloglovin and themakeupsquid was born.

After a few weeks I wanted a personal domain name, leaving the blogger URL in a signature just looked strange to me and I wanted it to spike curiosity not a eyesore.

Once I got the domain name I hooked it up to blogger and lost every comment I ever got up until that point.

It was a very bittersweet moment for me, happy I got my domain, sad that all my comments were gone.

I wrote a few posts on beauty blogging that got some good attention and some beauty posts.

But I had to choose who I wanted as my main audience, bloggers or people who wanted beauty advice?

This all depends on the type of post you write. If I write a post on 10 best blogging tips, I get other bloggers.

If I write a post on 10 best eye liners, I get people looking for advice.

I love helping people, but I don't want to get stuck there. I want to help my fellow bloggers as well as non bloggers. I learned that your early readers will be other bloggers.

This blog is going to be about my journey as a beauty blogger, I hope you stay and visit often as this will be a behind the scenes look of a beauty blogger.

It wont be flawless or perfect, but it will be genuine.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Laurie M.

What's up with subscription boxes?!

Subscription boxes have become all the rage in the beauty industry.

For a fee as low as $10 a month or a fee as high as $39.99 a month depending on what company you subscribe to, you will receive a box or a bag of beauty or health related products ranging from lip stains to the newest health foods.

With all of them you will go through a style or life style profile questionnaire thingy, Which from what I have read they don't even pay attention to. But you need to fill out regardless.

With most boxes you will receive  deluxe sample sizes of the newest and freshest products to hit the market from new companies or from old favorites.

When Ispy sent out full size Urban decay revolution lipsticks in venom, you could hear women praising the makeup gods from across the land. The lipstick itself paid for the subscription that month the rest of the products were bonuses.

When a company like Urban Decay want to spread joy and mayhem throughout the universe they do things like offer it through a subscription service to get a buzz going. After that box was sent out, that's all you heard and seen in the beautywebuverse. I just made that word up I like it.

After that I noticed a trend that the boxes have gotten so, so and people were questioning whether or not to cancel their subscriptions.

I don't think anyone should cancel their subscriptions. the truth is you get to try new products you may have never heard of, or only seen on the interwebs. So in my book its worth it.

Their are three major players in the Beauty subscription universe and please note these are only my views as who are the players here.

Ipsy at ipsy.com. There were around before Michelle Phan joined the team she helped skyrocket them into god like status.

Birchbox at birchbox.com. From what I have seen BirchBox is more of a skin care are of beauty rather than actual cosmetics. They also have a mens box which is kinda cool.

Then there is PopSugar Must have box from Popsugar.com. This box offers full size products with a little of everything from fashion, beauty and health foodie type stuff.

There are other subscription boxes for other countries but I haven't looked into any of them.

The thing is, keep your subscriptions going, you may not get a wow product every time, but you won't want to miss the next big thing to hit subscription boxes.

what beauty subscription service are you subscribed to?

Thanks for reading and have a great day!!

Tarte Friends and family 30% off* Extended!!

Tarte cosmetics has extended their 30% off holiday promotion!!

Click this link for the

Extended! 30% Off* orders on tarte.com with code DECFF at checkout.

Just wanted to share the news!!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!